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Post This On Your Bookcase

Posted on June 19, 2013

One of the great joys of my life is the unpredictability of this job, the serendipity, the lack of rigid schedules, the….the lack of any guarantee that you folks aren’t going to try to break my back at any given moment.

On Monday this week I had one person downsizing, one person moving, and the book inventory of an antique store in Indiana. On Tuesday, I had three people moving, one person downsizing, and a few hit-and-run donors who didn’t tell me why they were giving up their precious books. We are kind of in the business of receiving books, and we do have a Book Fair coming up, but that made roughly 80 boxes of books in two days. In the grand scheme of things—we expect to put out over 2800 boxes of books next month—that isn’t so many, but for two days in June, it’s quite an assignment.

What I need to do, obviously, is come up with some scheme that will spread donations out so I can spend a little time actually sorting, pricing, and packing books in between the times I need to spend hauling boxes and bags indoors. I’m still working on it, so don’t take this as a final schedule, but I think it’ll look something like this.

People donating extremely expensive but very heavy art books may do so on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

People donating nice, shiny mysteries they read once and are now ready to pass along may do so Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

People donating business books inscribed to them by people they met at conventions may bring those in on Monday morning or Friday afternoon.

People donating business books they read at the beginning of their career and never since may bring those in any weekday during their power lunch.

People bringing in the books they packed up when they graduated from college and have not looked at since may bring them in on Homecoming weekends in October.

People bringing in paperback romances that they read once and then stacked next to the cat’s litter box in the basement may bring those in on Valentine’s Day or, during Leap Year, on February 29.

People donating vampire romance novels should drop those off after dark.

People with werewolf romance novels may drop those off any time EXCEPT during a full moon.

People with books explaining why true patriots hate all members of That Other Party (whichever one it is) may do so on Election Day…every four years.

People bringing in books explaining a New Order in which we will all be happy if we only adopt the correct socioreligious attitude may bring those in on Halloween…they scare me.

People bringing in books with heartwarming stories of how the authors worked their way through vile illnesses should do so early in the morning, so I have the rest of the day to recover.

People bringing books in banana boxes may do so between 1 P.M. and 1:01 P.M. on odd-numbered Wednesdays in months with a G in them, IF Pluto is in the House of Saturn.

And THEN only if they call first and say “Captain, May I.”

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